The reach of the Internet is vast. People from one corner of the world are able to find and learn about ideas and information from sources in other far corners of the world. Consumers are able to easily research products and services using online resources prior to making purchases. Further, consumers are able to locate sources for goods/services of interest using online resources.
Online advertising has become a very popular way for merchants and service providers to advertise their goods and services. Aside from the wide reach of the Internet, this is due in large part to the ease of access to the Internet and the speed and relative efficiencies involved in actually preparing and publishing an advertisement online. Many online publishers will provide merchants and service providers with the publication of an advertisement accessible online (via the Internet, for example) for a fee. Many consumers begin their search for a given product or service via conducting an online search via, for example, a search engine an online search engine such as, or example, Yahoo!, Google, AltaVista or the like. These search engines are provided by a paid search provider, such as, for example, Google or Yahoo!. For a fee, paid search providers will place a merchants advertisement in a more advantageous location (such as, for example, the top of the list or on the first page of published search results) when presenting search results. In this way, a merchant may increase the chances that his advertisement will reach consumers. It should be noted that certain publishers will also provide the ability to conduct an online search, typically of other information published by the publisher. Using these systems, consumers are also able to obtain search results for a given search query.
Certain merchants sell products or services that are typically researched online but purchased offline. For example, merchants/sellers of automobiles, homes, apartments, legal services, professional services, and/or home services are more likely to have their products/services researched by consumers on-line but ultimately purchased offline. The key for these types of merchants/advertisers is to get the consumer to contact them. These types of merchants are typically looking for their advertisements to generate “leads” rather than a mere consumer viewing of the ad represented by the “clicks”.
Current online advertising systems do not adequately fulfill the needs of these types of merchants. For example, a pay-per-call system has been proposed for use with advertisers. These proposed systems allow a consumer viewing a particular online published advertisement to initiate a telephone call to a representative of the advertiser by clicking on, for example, a phone icon presented/displayed in the particular advertisement.
The problem with these systems has been that they are awkward for all but the more technically savvy to make use of. Further, once a telephone call is initiated by a consumer, if a representative of the merchant does not answer the call, the consumer will more than likely not make the attempt again. Further, the merchant is charged for the click thru, however derives no benefit at all from it and will often dispute the publisher's or search providers' attempt to bill for the useless click thru. These two problems translate into lost revenue for paid search providers and/or publishers, as well as advertisers.
In recent years many enterprises have adopted internet and World Wide Web (WWW) technologies to enable consumers to research, shop, find merchants and purchase desired goods or services. These enterprises essentially act as “intermediaries” between consumers and merchants/service providers. These intermediaries include Directory Service Providers, Search Engines, Category Aggregators, Online Classified Providers, Online Auction Sites and others. These intermediaries typically provide information ranging from basic identification of information, location, telephone numbers, maps and other logistical information concerning people, products, goods, services, merchants, service providers and others, to more advanced services/abilities that may include online catalogs, online order entry and other transactional services. Intermediaries often act as paid search providers, who, for a fee, will make sure that advertisers' goods/services are published and available for consumers to see on-line.
It is common for paid search providers (publisher) to host a web site, often associated with a related printed publication, such as a newspaper, to publish (or serve) advertisements (paid search ads) for one or more merchants of, for example, automobiles. The merchants may be, for example, automobile dealerships and/or individuals having certain vehicles available for sale. The collective publication of related items that are available for sale makes it easy for consumers to search out and find items of interest and, hopefully, initiate and conclude negotiations for the sale of those items.
In return for a fee paid by a merchant, the publisher of the web site will provide space (advertising space) on the web site for describing the item/automobile available for sale. Further, the publisher may provide a specific listing order of the advertisement. For example, an advertisement that is located near the top of the page or list, may be preferred by certain advertisers since it is more likely to draw the consumers interest and be viewed before the consumer selects another advertiser's product or loses interest and moves onto other matters.
In general, a consumer who is viewing a publisher's web site will first be required to initiate a search (either general or specific) via either the publishers search engine or another available search engine such as, for example, Yahoo!® or Google® to identify advertised items that are relevant to the consumers interests. The results of the search will typically be presented as a display of a list of all advertised items that meet the search query initiated by the consumer.
The order of the search results listing of advertised items may be random, alphabetic, based on advertised price, date of publication or other information. However, it is more likely that the order of the listing is based upon preferences given to certain advertisers who have paid a fee for such preferential listing order. As an advertiser, having your advertisement appear at the top of the list (as opposed to the bottom of the list) makes it more likely that a consumer will maintain interest in reviewing the list long enough to identify/find your advertisement and take the next steps to make the purchase or otherwise contact you (the advertiser) about the advertised item.
A typical search results listing will, via display on an associated display device, present a consumer with a listing of all advertisements that meet the consumer's interests (as indicated by a search query entered by the consumer). This listing of advertisements will typically be in a summary type format in which only the main general information concerning the advertised item is displayed. In order to view additional details included in an advertisement, the consumer must “click” on the summary listing (or a designated portion thereof) to advance to the complete advertisement pertaining to the item.
Like the typical printed advertisement, the typical online advertisement allows an advertiser to have information concerning a particular item/automobile published in a given ad space which appears on a web page at a given Universal resource locator (URL). The typical advertisement is limited to descriptive text and/or photographs pertaining to an automobile that is being offered for sale by the advertised.
Rarely, if ever, are all details that may be of interest to consumers concerning the advertised item set out in the advertisement. Most serious consumers will have additional questions concerning the advertised item that they want answered before they are in a position to move forward. In order for the advertisement to more likely be effective for the advertiser, it is common for the advertiser to include certain contact information via which a consumer may obtain additional information about the automobile for sale.
In order for a consumer to obtain additional information about an advertised item, they must either travel to a location specified in the advertisement or, perhaps, make a telephone call to a published telephone number set out in the advertisement. More recently, e-mail address information for the merchant may be published in the advertisement and the consumer may choose to solicit additional information from the merchant via sending an e-mail message to the merchant (often by simply clicking on a related e-mail address). In each case, the ability of the consumer to obtain prompt and complete information concerning the advertised item is limited as one or more intervening steps are required on the part of the consumer (for example: travel; properly address e-mail message; make telephone call to published telephone number). Each of these steps is time consuming. Further, even after taking such steps, whether or not the consumer will be successful in getting the information they desire is often contingent upon such things as, for example, whether or not correct contact information has been published in the advertisement; whether or not the advertiser actually/promptly responds and/or whether or not the advertiser answers the telephone and/or places the consumer on hold for a lengthy period of time. An advertiser who is unable to promptly and completely respond to a consumers inquiry runs the risk of not only losing potential selling opportunity with respect to any particular advertised item, but also of leaving the consumer with the impression that the particular advertiser is inept, disorganized, dishonest or otherwise not worthy of doing business with for any reason. The result is lost revenue for the advertiser and the publisher.
FIG. 1A is a diagram depicting the various systems involved in allowing a consumer 130 to search the Internet and identify advertisements for products that meet the consumers search criteria. Typically, the user 130 will use a computer configured to run, for example, a web browser for reading web pages published by various publishers 110 and distributed via an associated web server. Typically, an advertiser 140 will have access to certain publishing controls hosted by the publisher 110 to allow the advertiser to place content and other descriptive advertising information for publishing by the publisher 110. Some published advertising will incorporate, for example, an instant messaging hyper-link to allow a consumer to engage a representative of the advertiser in a one-on-one textual communication. If the advertiser representative is not logged onto the Internet and their Instant Messenger system, or otherwise able to accept a page from a consumer, the consumer will not be able to get the information they desire.
FIG. 1B is a diagram depicting a screen shot of search results 160 pertaining to a consumer search query as displayed on a display device 50. The search results 160 are a listing of advertised items meeting a particular consumer search query.
This listing is in summary format and contains few details pertaining to the advertised item. In order to view further details of an advertised item, it is necessary for the consumer to click on a hyper-link (link) published within the summary of each advertised item. In this example, the search results 160 include a listing of six items 161-166. Each of the listed items 161-166 include hyper-links (links) 161L-166L that can be activated (clicked) to cause a web page containing the detailed advertisement of the advertised item to be displayed.
FIG. 1C is a diagram depicting a screenshot of an advertisement 170. In this example, advertisement 170 is displayed when link 161L (see FIG. 1B) is activated/clicked on by a consumer. In this example, the published advertisement includes a photograph 172 of the item and text 174 describing the features of the item. This text includes telephone 176 and e-mail contact information to allow a consumer to contact the merchant/advertiser with any questions they may have. Neither of these means of communication allow for near immediate communication. In fact, the consumer is likely to spend substantial time either waiting on hold for someone to answer the telephone or waiting on someone to respond to an e-mail inquiry. Further, whether or not a consumer actually makes contact with a merchant may not be track-able, and may thus be difficult to qualify as, for example, a sales lead.
The smart advertiser/merchant wants to obtain maximum benefit from the advertisements that they have published online. It is the rare advertiser who does not groan when making payments to the publisher for advertising, particularly when there is no clear connection that the published advertisements have generated any certified leads for the advertiser/merchant.
In order for an advertisement to more likely be successful for an advertiser/merchant, it is important that consumers actually make contact with the advertiser/merchant. Each step required of the consumer to make contact with the advertiser/merchant is a potential roadblock that could keep the consumer from ever making the desired contact with the advertiser/merchant. In the case of an online advertisement, a consumer may send an e-mail message to the advertiser asking about the advertised item. However, the chances that the advertiser will be able to respond to the consumer's inquiry within a few minutes (i.e. “while the iron is still hot”) is generally very low. As a result, the chances that the interested consumer will lose interest and not follow up are quite high.
In short, the easier it is for a consumer to contact an advertiser/merchant and promptly obtain desired information concerning an advertised item, the higher the chances that the consumer will turn into a customer/buyer.
On-line advertisers have begun to incorporate the ability for consumers to initiate 2-way communications with the advertiser. This has been done by making use of known instant messaging (IM) technologies. Instant Messaging allows near instant internet-based communication between two parties using the same network and or service provider. Communication methods typically include text-based chat, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) as well as other methods, such as, for example, file transfer, streaming video/audio, application sharing and other methods. Use of IM in the on-line advertising realm has been limited to publication of a “contact icon” in relation to a particular advertisement, that if clicked/activated, will allow a consumer to initiate, for example, a 2-way textual communication. Unfortunately, if the advertiser (advertiser representative) is not available to receive and engage in the 2-way communication, the consumers' time is wasted and the advertiser has lost a potential sales/lead opportunity. Further, as typical instant messaging systems require a user to select a specific named person in order to initiate a 2-way “chat” session, it is difficult to use instant messaging in advertising since a consumer often does not want to communicate with a specific named person but, rather, anyone associated with the merchant who will actually be able to assist them by answering their questions.
Numerous commercial applications of wireless messaging exist today including, for example, interactive pagers using various communication methods and protocols, mobile phone based text communication including those using the Short Message Service (SMS) protocol and Multi-media Message Service (MMS) protocol.
With respect to online advertising, advertisers are often charged based upon the size of the advertisement and/or the nature of the content of the advertisement. For example, text only advertisements may be charged at one rate, while an advertisement that contains text as well as, for example, photographs of an advertised item may be charged at a different rate. Further, the advertiser may be charged a fee based upon the number of times a consumer “clicks through” from, for example, the advertisement summary listing to the actual full-blown advertisement for a particular item.
The ease which current web browser/technology allows anyone viewing a web page to click through to an advertisement creates an issue for advertisers. Namely, increased fees for “false” or otherwise inadvertent/non-serious/fraudulent/malicious click through. Advertisers are not interested in paying for “false” click thru and are quick to have publishers justify or otherwise substantiate the number of click thrus that they are billed for.